What happened to Ryan Graves?

[Gurglesons]

He's always been this player lol.

 

[tucker3434]

Hard to know a guy’s ceiling until he bounces off of it. Now he has.

 

[DrunkTurtle]

He is no longer playing with Cale Makar.

Thankfully.

Graves had such high hockey IQ that he wanted to be the one to get the offense going from the blueline way too often. Dude you're playing with Cale Makar just give him the puck and focus on defense.

 

[HTFN]

Sounds like his tenure in Pittsburgh.

Also Mike Sullivan's 'system' is where defensemen go to die. If he was in a better, more structured environment he might be *slightly* serviceable.

Aw man what happened to when they had a different budding Norris candidate every two years for you guys to hype up?

so weird how that didn't work out.

 

[Brodeur]

Good luck, I'm still waiting to find out what happened to Will Butcher

Yep exactly Graves was alright for the Devils in 22-23 but re-signing him to the contract that Pitts gave him would of been disastrous, even if he didn't play as bad as he is now. Severson heavily regressed after going to the Jackets. That would have been another disastrous contract for the Devils.


Same here! Looked like there was good potential after his rookie season, then he fell off the face of the earth in like 20 games.

I thought Graves was a decent enough 2nd pair guy for his two years with the Devils. Not that +/- is everything but he was a +34 in 2022-23.

As for Butcher, he got sheltered minutes in 2017-18. At even strength:

Vatanen (18:40)
Moore (17:49)
Greene (17:48)
Severson (17:09)
Mueller (14:31)
Lovejoy (13:33)
Butcher (13:22)

Meanwhile Butcher led the D with 2:39 of PP time per game. 23 of his 44 points came on the PP.

In 2018-19, they increased Butcher's usage and his defensive warts started to become more apparent. And then they'd acquire P.K. Subban at the 2019 Draft. Subban would take the PP1 spot for awhile but then lost it to Sami Vatanen.

So Butcher became a guy they didn't trust at even strength but was now wasn't even getting regular PP2 minutes. Not many of those guys stick around long term in the league. Unfortunately Ty Smith would end up being a better skating version of Butcher recently.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

View attachment 974835

You should have seen how many people called him a good coach in the post-game thread after we lost to you guys.

 

[NOTENOUGHRYJOTHINGS]

Haven't Makar's advanced stats gone down the toilet once Graves left? Maybe it was the perfect match.

He would be cheap for the Aves to re acquire.

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

One of those signings where the second it was announced everyone knew it was too much and too long. He’s just never shown that value.

I knew he was overpaid but I wasn't expecting him to be unplayable. Guy is easily the worst player on the Pens and probably shouldn't be in the nhl.

 

[NVious]

Haven't Makar's advanced stats gone down the toilet once Graves left? Maybe it was the perfect match.

He would be cheap for the Aves to re acquire.

People keep talking about Crosby to the Avs, but the real trade was Makar to the Pens.

 

[Bounces R Way]

He sucks. He has always sucked. Of course it was Dubas giving him a big bag of money.

 

[DingDongCharlie]

He was never good. Let’s be honest

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDo]

His offensive explosion last night led to a mention ina HockeyBuzz blog today:
“Ryan Graves earned his first point of the season on an assist in his 40th game played. He still trails Alex Nedeljkovic in both goals (1) and points (2). He has four years remaining on his contract with an AAV of 4.5M.”

 

[olli]

His offensive explosion last night led to a mention ina HockeyBuzz blog today:
“Ryan Graves earned his first point of the season on an assist in his 40th game played. He still trails Alex Nedeljkovic in both goals (1) and points (2). He has four years remaining on his contract with an AAV of 4.5M.”

His assist has been renounced lol

Ryan Graves Stats And News

Get all the latest stats, news, videos, and more on Ryan Graves.

www.nhl.com

 

[3074326]

Shitty, expensive player on a shitty, expensive team with a shitty, expensive coach

The rare threefer

 

[SEALBound]

It's the very real Sullivan Effect.

And honestly, I think the truth in somewhere in between. First, he's just not that great of a player to begin with. The contract he was given was honestly the absolute max you can give a guy like that. Then he comes to a team coached by Sullivan where the defensive zone system leaves A LOT to be desired and requires a very high hockey IQ and good skating - nothing something Graves has a ton of.

So it's a mediocre player becoming a bad player in a bad system. As much as I don't like having him on the Penguins roster, I do tend to believe that he would be a better player in a better system that have more defensive structure and commitment from the players.

 

[njdevil26]

He was VERY good in NJ in 22-23 but it was the kind of thing we all knew a team was going to give him too much money and regret it. Same with Severson.

Severson was coveted around the league and Devils fans never understood why.